The present invention is directed to an optical arrangement of a plurality of strip-shaped optical waveguides, with each of the waveguides extending between an optical input port of the arrangement to an optical output port of the arrangement allocated only for this particular waveguide and each waveguide comprising a specific path length between the input port and the allocated output port so that the path lengths of at least two waveguides differ, and wherein the output ports are arranged side-by-side at a slight spatial distance so that optical waves guided in the waveguides and outfed via the output ports are coherently superimposed on one another.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,226,100, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference thereto and which claims priority from German Application 40 29 971; the article by Smit entitled "New Focusing and Dispersive Planar Component Based on an Optical Phased Array", Electronics Letters, Vol. 24, No. 7, 31 Mar. 1988, pp. 385-386; and an article by Takahashi et al entitled "Arrayed-Waveguide Grating for Wavelength Division Multi/Demultiplexer with Nanometre Resolution", Electronics Letters, Vol. 26, No. 2, 18 Jan. 1990, pp. 87-88 each disclose an optical arrangement having two or more optical waveguides, with each optically connected to an optical input port of the arrangement and extending to an optical output port of the arrangement allocated only to the waveguide and having a specific path length between the input port and output port so that the length of at least two waveguides differ, wherein the output ports are arranged side-by-side at a slight spatial distance so that optical waves guided in the waveguides and outfed via the optical ports are coherently superimposed on one another and which form a phased array that can be employed as a transmitting optical phase grid.